664. Zella Palmer, Part 1.

664. Part 1 of our interview with Zella Palmer about the influence of African cooking on creole cuisine. The Story of New Orleans Creole Cooking: The Black Hand in the Pot. She is also the author of Recipes and Remembrances of Fair Dillard, 1869-2019. Zella, educator, food historian, author, and filmmaker, serves as the Chair and Director of the Dillard University Ray Charles Program in African-American Material Culture. Palmer is committed to preserving the legacy of African-American, Native American, and Latino culinary history in New Orleans and the South. Palmer curated The Story of New Orleans Creole Cooking: The Black Hand in the Pot academic conference and documentary, the Nellie Murray Feast, and the Dr. Rudy Joseph Lombard: Black Hand in the Pot Lecture Series.

1. Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 222 years. Order your copy today!
2. This week in the Louisiana Anthology. "The City that Lives Outdoors," by W. S. Harwood. For at least nine months in the twelve, the people of this rare old town live out of doors nearly all the waking hours of the twenty-four. For the remaining three months of the year, December, January, and February, they delude themselves into the notion that they are having a winter, when they gather around a winter-time hearth and listen to imaginary wind-roarings in the chimney, and see through the panes fictitious and spectral snow-storms, and dream that they are housed so snug and warm. But when the day comes the sun is shining and there is no trace of white on the ground, and the grass is green and there are industrious buds breaking out of cover, and the earth is sleeping very lightly. Open-eyed, the youngsters sit by these December firesides and listen to their elders tell of the snow-storms in the long ago that came so very, very deep, when snowballs were flying in the streets, and the earth was white, and the 'banquettes,' or sidewalks, were ankle-deep in slush.
   
3. This week in Louisiana history. February 7, 2010. New Orleans Saints win their very first Super Bowl and finish the year at 14-3.
4. This week in New Orleans history. Born in New Orleans on February 6, 1944, Wilson Turbinton (known as Tee and Willie Tee) arranged, co-wrote and led the band on the Wild Magnolias' self-titled 1974 debut album. The popularity of that recording, and the subsequent They Call Us Wild introduced the Mardi Gras Indians' street-beat funk to the world. 
   
5. This week in Louisiana.
   Courir de Mardi Gras in Eunice
   Downtown Eunice
   Eunice, LA 70535
   February 14, 2026
   Website: eunice-la.com
   Email: info@eunice-la.com
   Phone: (337) 457-7389
   The Courir de Mardi Gras is one of Louisiana's oldest and most distinctive Mardi Gras traditions, featuring masked riders on horseback, live Cajun and Zydeco music, and a community gumbo that brings the whole town together:
   
• The Chicken Run: Costumed riders chase a released chicken through the countryside, a hallmark of the old Cajun Mardi Gras.
• Live Music: Downtown Eunice hosts day‑long performances by Cajun and Zydeco bands.
• Traditional Gumbo: Ingredients gathered during the courir are used to prepare a communal gumbo served in the evening.
6. Postcards from Louisiana. Florida Street Blowhards at LSU.

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